The Südwestdeutsche Philharmonie Konstanz is a professional classical orchestra, based in

Konstanz Konstanz ( , , , ), traditionally known as Constance in English, is a college town, university city with approximately 83,000 inhabitants located at the western end of Lake Constance in the Baden-Württemberg state of south Germany. The city ho ...

Lake Constance Lake Constance (, ) refers to three bodies of water on the Rhine at the northern foot of the Alps: Upper Lake Constance (''Obersee''), Lower Lake Constance (''Untersee''), and a connecting stretch of the Rhine, called the Seerhein (). These ...

Origin

The orchestra was founded in 1932 as the "Theatre and Concert Orchestra" by Hans Rüdinger. After the closure of all German theatres and orchestras in 1944 due to the war, it was re-established in 1945 under the name "Städtisches Orchester Konstanz". From 1949/1950 to 1958, Richard Treiber was the first music director. Between 1959 and 1965, the orchestra under Heinz Hofmann (once ''

Kapellmeister ( , , ), from German (chapel) and (master), literally "master of the chapel choir", designates the leader of an ensemble of musicians. Originally used to refer to somebody in charge of music in a chapel, the term has evolved considerably in i ...

'' in Halle/DDR), the orchestra achieved national importance and in 1962 was given the name "Bodensee-Symphonie-Orchester" (Lake Constance Symphony Orchestra), which was valid until 1988. In 1988 it was renamed the "Southwest German Philharmonic Orchestra of Constance".

Organisation

Since 2006, the Südwestdeutsche Philharmonie Konstanz, which was previously managed by the City of Constance, has been run as an independent enterprise in accordance with the ''Eigenbetriebsgesetz''; the purpose according to the statutes is: "The orchestra has the task of promoting interest in and understanding of symphonic music, of participating in cultural life, especially in Constance and the regions surrounding the city, and of strengthening the cultural cohesion of the countries of the Lake Constance region.", Stadt Konstanz, retrieved. The organs of the Eigenbetrieb are the municipal council, the orchestra committee, the mayor and the artistic director. The Südwestdeutsche Philharmonie Konstanz is one of three symphony orchestras funded by the state of Baden-Württemberg. Of the annual budget of EUR 5.9 million in 2013/2014, the city of Konstanz contributed EUR 2.29 million and the state of Baden-Württemberg EUR 2.21 million.

The Orchestra

The orchestra has about 60 permanent musicians. Since the 2016/2017 season, the principal conductor has been Ari Rasilainen. was

artistic director An artistic director is the executive of an arts organization, particularly in a theatre company or dance company, who handles the organization's artistic direction. They are generally a producer and director, but not in the sense of a mogu ...

of the Südwestdeutsche Philharmonie from April 2008 to 2012. From October 2012 to August 2013, the position was held on an interim basis by Madeleine Häusler. Since autumn 2013 until the end of the 2017/2018 season took Beat Fehlmann as artistic director, who then went to the

Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz The Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz (German State Philharmonic of Rhineland-Palatinate) is a German orchestra based in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, in Ludwigshafen am Rhein. The orchestra performs concerts principally a ...

. Insa Pijanka has been the orchestra's artistic director since January 2019.

Concerts

The 130 concerts in the 2013/2014 season had 62,836 visitors.Südwestdeutsche Philharmonie. In Stadt Konstanz, Hauptamt - Statistik und Steuerungsunterstützung (ed.): ''Konstanz in Zahlen 2015'', . Concerts are held in Constance (),

Kreuzlingen Kreuzlingen () is a municipality in the district of Kreuzlingen in the canton of Thurgau in north-eastern Switzerland. It is the seat of the district and is the second-largest city of the canton, after Frauenfeld, with a population of about 22 ...

(Kulturzentrum Dreispitz) and other cities, as in the Kongresshaus Zürich (since 1980) and in the

Lucerne Culture and Congress Centre The Culture and Congress Centre in Lucerne (or KKL for ''Kultur- und Kongresszentrum Luzern'') is a multi-functional building with a concert hall that is esteemed for its high-profile acoustics. It was built according to the plans of the archit ...

(since 2000). Every year the orchestra plays at the Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi in Milan and at the . On concert tours, the orchestra has played at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival and the in Milan/Turin as well as at the

Carinthischer Sommer The Carinthian Summer is a music and cultural festival in the Austrian province of Carinthia. It was founded in 1969 in Ossiach

, the Athens Festival and the Festival Internacional de Música de Toledo. The orchestra performs philharmonic concerts, chamber concerts and various programmes for children and young people, as well as accompanying choral concerts. It has worked with singers such as

Anna Netrebko Anna Yuryevna Netrebko (; born 18 September 1971) is a Russian and Austrian operatic soprano who has performed at the Salzburg Festival, Metropolitan Opera, Vienna State Opera, the Royal Opera and La Scala. Netrebko is one of the few Russian p ...

Montserrat Caballé María de Montserrat Bibiana Concepción Caballé i Folch or Folc (12 April 1933 – 6 October 2018), also known as Montserrat Caballé (i Folch), was a Spanish operatic soprano from Catalonia. Widely considered to be one of the best sopranos ...

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Plácido Domingo José Plácido Domingo Embil (born 21 January 1941) is a Spanish opera singer, conductor, and arts administrator. He has recorded over a hundred complete operas and is well known for his versatility, regularly performing in Italian, French, ...

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and

Marcelo Álvarez Marcelo Raúl Álvarez (born February 27, 1962) is an Argentine lyric tenor who achieved international success starting in the mid-1990s. Álvarez travels widely, performing with top singers in major opera houses and concert halls around the wor ...

as well as instrumentalists such as

Tabea Zimmermann Tabea Zimmermann (born 8 October 1966) is a German violist who has performed internationally, both as a soloist and a chamber musician. She has been artist in residence of the Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic, and the Bavarian ...

Isabelle van Keulen Isabelle van Keulen (born 16 December 1966) is a Dutch violinist and violist, performing principally as a chamber musician but also as a concert violist. She founded the Isos Quartet in 1995. For more than 20 years, she collaborated with the pi ...

Sabine Meyer Sabine Meyer (born 30 March 1959) is a German classical clarinetist. Biography Born in Crailsheim, Baden-Württemberg, Meyer began playing the clarinet at an early age. Her first teacher was her father, also a clarinetist. She studied with Otto ...

Rudolf Buchbinder Rudolf Buchbinder (born 1 December 1946, Litoměřice, Czechoslovakia) is an Austrian classical pianist. Biography Buchbinder studied with Bruno Seidlhofer at the Vienna Academy of Music. In 1965, he made a tour of North and South Americas. In ...

, Boris Pergamenschikow,

Christian Tetzlaff Christian Tetzlaff (born 29 April 1966) is a German violinist who has performed internationally, with a focus on chamber music. Biography Tetzlaff was born in Hamburg. His parents were amateur musicians and met in a church choir. He began playi ...

Heinrich Schiff Heinrich Schiff (; 18 November 1951 – 23 December 2016) was an Austrian cellist and conductor. Early life Heinrich Schiff was born on 18 November 1951 in Gmunden, Austria. His parents, Helga (née Riemann) and Helmut Schiff, were composers. H ...

Bruno Leonardo Gelber Bruno Leonardo Gelber (born 19 March 1941) is an Argentine people, Argentine classical pianist. Biography Gelber is an Argentine pianist born in Buenos Aires, with Austrian and France, French-Italy, Italian descent. His father was a violinist, ...

Lars Vogt Lars Vogt (8 September 1970 – 5 September 2022) was a German classical pianist, conductor and academic teacher. Noted by ''The New York Times'' for his interpretations of Johannes Brahms, Brahms, Vogt performed as a soloist with major orchestr ...

Nikolai Lugansky Nikolai Lvovich Lugansky (; born 26 April 1972) is a Russian pianist. Early life and education Nikolai Lugansky was born on 26 April 1972 in Moscow, Russia, to research scientist parents. At the age of five, before he had learned to read music ...

, Tzimon Barto,

Christian Lindberg Christian Lindberg (born 15 February 1958) is a Swedish trombonist, conductor and composer. Biography Early life and career Lindberg was born in Danderyd. As a youth, he learned to play the trumpet, and subsequently began to learn the trombo ...

Vadim Repin Vadim Viktorovich Repin (, ; born 31 August 1971) is a Russian and Belgian violinist who lives in Vienna.A ...

Julian Rachlin Julian Rachlin (born 8 December 1974) is a Lithuanian-born violinist, violist and conductor. Biography Born in Vilnius to a Jewish family, he emigrated in 1978 with his musician parents to Austria. In 1983, he entered the Konservatorium Wien an ...

Mischa Maisky Mischa Maisky (, , ; born 10 January 1948) is a Soviet-born Israeli cellist. Biography Mischa Maisky was born in 1948 in Riga and is the younger brother of organist, harpsichordist and musicologist Valery Maisky (1942–1981). He was taught by ...

and

Gidon Kremer Gidon Kremer (; born 27 February 1947) is a Latvian classical violinist, artistic director, and founder of Kremerata Baltica. Life and career Gidon Kremer was born in Riga. His father was Jewish and had survived the Holocaust. His mother had ...

References

External links